Compulsory voting is a solution to low voter turnout: Commentary

In 2012, Barack Obama was re-elected with the votes of less than a third of the population of Americans who are eligible to vote. Presidents Clinton and George W. Bush won the votes of only a quarter of those eligible. As someone who grew up in Australia, I am surprised by this. That’s because Australia requires eligible voters to vote.

Since nationwide compulsory voting was introduced in Australian elections in 1924, the turnout has never fallen below 90 percent. Today, 23 countries have compulsory voting laws.

Australia is no political paradise. Campaigns produce plenty of nonsense. Australians, like Americans, are not always informed voters. And some Australians participate in an apathetic practice called “donkey voting” — essentially voting for candidates based only on the order they appear on the ballot.

But the percentage of informal votes remains small — around 4 percent in most counts. And it hardly mitigates the distinct advantages of compulsory voting.

In ethnically diverse countries formed by immigration, compulsory voting allows the greatest proportion of voices to be heard in an election, promoting social cohesion and the value of political participation. Watching my parents vote in every election, I understood the importance of duty and citizenship. Compulsory voting creates culture and expectations. I can’t name one person I know who has been levied the standard $20 fine for not voting.

For all these reasons, compulsory voting is one Australian affinity that, unlike Vegemite and Mel Gibson, Americans would do well to emulate.

Compulsory voting — on display this weekend in the country’s national elections — also addresses many of the concerns that Americans are raising about the state of their own democracy. Chief among these is the relatively weak representation of lower middle-class and poor Americans in the nation’s politics. Political science research establishes that when voting is voluntary, those with higher socio-economic status — people with time and money — are more likely to cast a ballot. According to the U.S Census Bureau, in the 2008 election, 76 percent of voters earning a median income of $50,000 or more voted, while only 59 percent of Americans earning less than that cast their ballots.

With compulsory voting, the elections — and the debate around them — would be broader. Since so little of the country actual votes, American politicians don’t have to appeal to the whole country. Instead, they cater naturally to the groups most likely to vote for them.

The most common complaint raised in the U.S. against compulsory voting is that it infringes on one’s freedom not to vote. But if requiring voting every two or four years is a suppression of rights, it’s a fairly modest one — and far less time-consuming than the government coercions of paying taxes, jury duty, or receiving a basic education.

Advertisement

Some worry that compulsory voting benefits the liberal party, and others suggest that the additional voters would be less informed and would make choices of dubious quality compared to voluntary voters. But there is little evidence to back either objection. Despite its compulsory voting laws, Australia’s political landscape has long resembled that of the United States — domination by two major parties on a familiar liberal to conservative spectrum.

Compulsory voting would help Americans get past their toxic debate over laws that make it harder to vote. Australia is a voter’s paradise. Election Day is always on a weekend. Postal and early voting are readily available. It’s no surprise that compulsory voting is popular, with public approval at about 75 percent.

As Americans battle over alleged voter suppression in places like Texas and Florida, compulsory voting looks like a way out. If every eligible adult were required to vote, states would have little choice but to overhaul their electoral systems and make voting as accessible as possible. This would focus attention back on the issues, not the process — and make American democracy and Election Day for everyone.

Ariel Bogle is a program associate for the Future Tense initiative, a partnership between Slate, the New America Foundation, and Arizona State University. She wrote this for Zocalo Public Square.